


all I want is you

by tsunderestorm



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 11:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11988582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: will you stay with me?A look through their years together where a lot of things have changed, but never the fact that all Ignis has ever wanted is Noctis.





	all I want is you

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an Ignis/Noctis fluff piece and along the way turned into more of a character study for Ignis re: his feelings for Noctis. A bit of canon divergence, obviously, and some gratuitous headcanon concerning Ignis' parents' heritage and the extent to which Noctis was affected by the marilith attack.
> 
> The amazing Shadi ([twitter](https://twitter.com/junkyardshadi) / [insta](https://www.instagram.com/junkyardshadi/)) has done [a beautiful piece of art](https://twitter.com/JunkyardSHADi/status/914590942446985218) for the scene with the plush Carbuncle, please show some love!

When Ignis is five years old, he stands in the throne room and re-thinks his carefully rehearsed word choice. He’s closer to King Regis than he’s ever been and the King is an impressive sight: seated high atop the dais bordered by grand ebony staircases, the light streaming in through the windows making the polished gold sculptures gleam.

“Your Majesty,” he begins slowly, bowing low and respectful just as his uncle had taught him the first day he brought him to the Citadel, “I humbly request your permission to serve as steward to His Highness, Prince Noctis.”

The words are tricky on his tongue, sounding too formal by far for his tender age but there is a reason, after all, that his uncle refers to him as _gifted._ He supposes that it's so he can stand before the King on legs that don't shake and speak with a voice that doesn't waver, can articulate that he’s found what he wants to do with his life at the tender age of five.

From beside him Noctis’ hand finds his way to his: thin fingers, sticky from the fruit tart he’d charmed out of the kitchen staff meshing with his own, clammy as Ignis tightens his grip around his smaller hand. Tentatively, Noctis looks at has father, then back to Ignis - imploring, hopeful. Trusting, above all else, something affectionate in these stormy blue eyes.

“I realize that he is young, but this is my desire,” Ignis continues when he is met with silence. “To stay at his side and guide him.”

One of the King’s council members - Ignis is not sure who, though he'd hazard a guess towards the stuffy Shield always at his side - makes a noise and Noctis darts behind him, forehead pressed between Ignis’ shoulder blades as he hides his face. King Regis sits up a bit straighter on his throne and tilts his head, playing with his young son as he peeks at him from around Ignis.

“And what is my son’s desire?” he asks, offering Noctis a smile before he turns his attention back to the boy before him, the boy asking prematurely to be advisor to a prince not even past his childhood yet. “Noctis wants nothing of princehood, but I am expected to believe he has need of a chamberlain? What do you want, my son?”

Ignis feels Noctis’s fingers clench tighter in his own. Softly, he says to his father: “I want Ignis,” he says. “Want Ignis with me all the time.”

Regis smiles and nods, turning his attention back to Ignis, to the boy professing his devotion to a prince not even old enough to count two digits on his age. “Welcome, then, Ignis Scientia: the first young member of my son’s household. May you serve him well.”

For the first time in his life Ignis feels like he was born for something special when Noctis looks at him and pleads “Don't ever leave me, okay?”

\--

Seven years later Ignis tastes mortality on his tongue, thinks of the possibility of failure, of losing the prince he swore to guide and protect. The prince whose smile brings his heart fluttering into his throat, whose fingers laced in his makes sweet warmth settle into his stomach. Noctis is in Tenebrae: a continent away, _worlds away_ with daemon venom twisting through his veins and legs that won’t serve him as they’re supposed to and Ignis is stuck in Lucis waiting for news.

There’s a princess there, they say - a beautiful one, with hair like moonlight and a smile that could turn the tides of war and he feels...jealous. The Oracle, Lunafreya. Ignis wonders if Noctis’ name sounds the same on her tongue as it does his (the Tenebraean accent he modeled after his mother has never quite been a skin he can shed), if the soft sound of “s’’ at the end makes Noctis giggle the same way it does when _he_ says it. Envy is an unforgiving creature, worming its way into his heart and waging war with duty and honor, settling in right next to _love_ and making itself at home. He wonders if he'll ever be rid of it. He knows he probably won't.

When Noctis returns to the Citadel, he will speak to no one, see no one. He shuns his tutors and pushes everyone away with his silence, his steely eyes that stare but do not seem to recognize. He runs his fingers over the statue his father gave to him, holds it in his hand until the ridges of the carving dig angry red lines into his palm and try as they might, no one can get him to let it go.

Ignis returns to him on a Sunday, a day his uncle wouldn’t normally be at the Citadel but a day that Ignis specifically requests. He has a gift for the Prince, he says - one he’s devoted every hour of time not spent on studying to - clutched in his hands. It’s wrapped in silver foil paper and tied with a black bow and the way the silver foil paper casts a rainbow of color as it shifts in the light reminds him of Insomnia’s crystal.

“Your Highness,” he begins as he enters his room, pausing when Noctis turns towards him. He looks so small and sick, so _sad_ and Ignis wants to break every rule of decorum he’s ever learned and hold him in his arms so nothing can hurt him. So the angry wound in his back is less of an angry scar, so the aches left in his arms and legs (souvenirs from the venom) don't make him cry out at night, so he can feel _well_ again.

Instead he only says: “I’ve a gift for you.”

He sits on the bed before Noctis and puts the wrapped box in his lap, alarmed when the Prince does nothing. Has he overstepped? Gone too far, presumed too much? His heart thuds in his chest, nervous and _terrified_ , wondering if the drastic changes in Noctis’ personality include a change in how he feels about him. Suddenly he feels foolish, self-conscious of the present he's made for him - it's too childish for a boy of ten, too sentimental.

“Can you help me?” Noctis asks weakly, after he's stared at the box for a few moments. “My hands...hurt.”

Slowly, Ignis takes Noctis’ hands in his - gentle, hesitant, afraid to overstep even though he wants to. He lets Noctis feel the texture of the ribbon he’d chosen - coarse from the strands of glittering thread woven through it, lets his palm take in the smoothness of the paper, the slight ridge of the seams where he’s taped the paper down.

Ignis lifts the lid off of the box for him and Noctis’ face lights up. “Carbuncle!” he squeaks, elated, tugging the plush animal Ignis has painstakingly sewn and stuffed out of the box and clutching it to his chest. It is, in his opinion, a faithful replica of the wooden figure the King had given him, the one Noctis sits right at the edge of his beside table when he sleeps: the guardian of his dreams. He's carefully chosen the perfect fabric: soft, but not weak - stitched it extra-strong at the seams and made sure its ears are just the right amount of floppy. “Iggy, you made me Carbuncle!”

That night when King Regis is too busy to tuck Noctis safely into his bed, it is Ignis that Noctis asks for: Ignis’ voice reading a bedtime story, Ignis’ lips on his forehead to kiss him goodnight.

Ignis thinks this is what everyone means by _love._

\--

Noctis is on the cusp of seventeen when Ignis will finally allow himself to admit how inappropriately his feelings have manifested; when he succumbs to the now-irresistible allure of Noctis throwing his arms round his neck and rising up on his tiptoes to press their lips together. He's been doing it for years, flirting even before he knew _how_ to flirt, begging Ignis to make him his and finally Ignis _does_.

Noctis is small and delicate beneath him, needy and panting after Ignis has barely touched him, after they've done little more than kiss. Ignis thinks there's nothing better than Noctis’ face when Ignis finally says _I love you_ , finally vocalizes the way he's felt, he thinks, since he stood in front of King Regis fourteen years ago with Noctis’ hand so innocently clasped in his. It's not as innocent, now - his hands atop Noctis’ lying palm up on the pillows as he rocks into him, cradled in the refuge between the Prince’s thighs, lips on his neck as Noctis pants with every thrust.

They've fallen asleep together more times than he can remember: under blankets of stars, in the backseat of limos, in the windowsill where Noctis likes to sit, but it's different now, different with Noctis’ bare hip under his palm, with Noctis’ hair fanned out on the pillow, sex-messy and damp.

“Don't leave, okay?” Noctis says it quietly, muffled into the pillow, half asleep and bleary as his hand searches for Ignis’ beneath the blanket. “Don't ever leave me.”

“Of course not, Noct. Never.” _As if I would even dream of it_.

Now, Ignis thinks, he _knows_ this is love.

\--

At twenty-two, Ignis finds himself in the same spot he occupied as a child of five with the same prince beside him, fingers laced with his own. Clammy again, a bit sweaty.

“Your Majesty,” he begins as always, giving a brief bow. They're far past formalities now, really, with how long he's been at Noctis’ side but he feels it's the right thing to do. Especially, he thinks, given the circumstances. “I request your permission -”

Noctis laughs, and it throws off Ignis’ concentration. Turning towards him and giving the sensitive skin of his forearm a tiny pinch, he asks “Is there a problem, _Your Highness?_ ”

“No!” he laughs, waving dismissively but when Ignis turns back to Regis, he pokes at him again and teases: “You just sound really formal, is all.”

Ignis sighs. _Difficult as always_ , though he'd never have him any other way. “I am speaking to the _king_ regarding a very important matter, and furthermore this is all I _know -”_

Noctis yawns, opening one eye to survey Ignis’ reaction as he does it. He's playing, covering up his nervousness with jokes - exactly what Ignis would expect of him.

Laughing, he finally adds: “Yeah, but. It's my _dad_.”

Ignis takes a deep breath, expending considerable effort to swallow past the nervous lump in his throat. Slowly, holding his head high and keeping his voice level he says: “I request your permission to marry His Highness, Prince Noctis.”

There it is, out in the open. Surely King Regishas noticed, he thinks, that they're destined for something more - taken note of the way they can't help but touch even in a room full of people, surely he can hear how fast his heart beats when Noct says even one simple thing to him.

He's never been more sure of anything in his life, but still the words stick in his throat. Impeccable breeding and a gifted mind don't make him royalty, they don't make him worthy, and Regis could very well say no. “I've never wanted anything more,” he finishes.

Regis looks at him wearing an expression that Ignis can't quite read. Slowly the King turns his gaze toward Noctis, who has moved to have his arm wound through Ignis’ and is leaning against him, head on his shoulder, soft hair fanned over his pressed suit jacket. “What do _you_ want, Noctis?”

Noctis looks up at his lover and slowly, unwavering, he says “I want Ignis.”

Ignis wonders if Noctis remembers - doubtful, he thinks, but still he wonders - seventeen years ago, standing in this very same spot and uttering the very same words. Telling his father _I want Ignis_ , setting in motion a lifetime of love and devotion.

“It would seem, then, that I'm gaining a second son,” Regis says, and Ignis exhales the breath he's been holding. “It will be a pleasure to have you in the family.”

Noctis nudges Ignis' elbow. “Just like that, see? It was easy. Told you he'd let you. Hey - don't ever leave me, okay?”

I would never dream of making such an egregiously bad decision,” Ignis vows as he taps his fingers to Noctis’ chin and tilts his face up claim his mouth in a kiss. For Regis to see, for his advisors to see, for Insomnia and Lucis and the whole damn _world_ to see.

\--

“Looks like I have two royals to protect.” Gladiolus says, playfully shoving Ignis’ shoulder. Ignis thinks there should probably be some rule against tormenting either of the grooms on their wedding day but as it stands, there is no such protocol and here Gladio is.

“Hardly,” Ignis laughs, hiding his mouth behind one elegantly gloved hand, conscious of his foolishly wide smile and big teeth. He's always been shy of it, but today he can't stop smiling, not when the day’s soundtrack has been the Lucian wedding march and Noctis’ voice uttering their vows.

“I'm only Prince Consort, besides. Not real royalty.”

Noctis slides up beside him then, slotting his arm perfectly through the space between Ignis’ arm and body and resting his head on his shoulder. He’s tired, overwhelmed - royal weddings are exhausting affairs and Noctis has little energy to begin with but he's still so, so beautiful it makes Ignis ache.

“What are you talking about, Ignis? ‘Only” Prince Consort?” Noctis asks, bewildered.

“Noctis, I have extensively researched the protocols concerning the addressing of members of the royal family and as we've discussed, Prince Consort is - “

“Ignis. You’re my husband. When I’m king, you’ll be king too.” Noctis says, pouting when Ignis reaches with his free hand to brush the prince’s unruly bangs back from his face. “You're not gonna be able to be all proper and humble when someone calls you King Ignis.”

Ignis has never wanted the throne. It's been suggested; whispered behind hands, written in the types of trashy tabloids one can only find in the dimly-lit back aisles of gas stations, hissed at Ignis by a low-level government officials who don't _understand_. Ignis has only ever wanted Noctis; has only ever wanted to be friend and family and more for the prince he gave his life to as a child.

Noctis - his friend, his prince, his lover, his _husband_ , and Noctis is who he has. Officially, now - it's written in the royal records and history books for years to come, printed on the smooth vellum invitations (one of which Prompto had quickly stolen for his scrapbook) and the date is engraved inside the simple twin tungsten bands on their fingers, bands that seem drawn to each other when he wraps his arms around Noct from behind, slotting his fingers in between his husband’s.

“Don't ever leave me,” Noctis says, letting his head loll back on Ignis’ shoulder, “Just want you.”


End file.
